Welsh fans take over Lille ahead of their crunch Euro 2016 quarter-final with Belgium
20,000 Wales supporters soak up the atmosphere ahead of tonight's game
TWENTY thousands Wales fans have descended on Lille ahead of their team's crunch quarter-final against Belgium tonight.
The French city - just ten miles from the Belgian border - was a sea of red shirts today as supporters soaked up the friendly atmosphere.
Fans including rugby star Taulupe Faletau mixed happily with Belgium fans, also wearing red, in the city's main square.
Flights, ferries and Eurostar trains have been full of the travelling supporters, with no reports of trouble as police praised the Welsh fans' behaviour in France as "exemplary".
Today Wales manager Chris Coleman promised Belgium "a hell of a game".
Belgium, ranked second in the world, start as favourites with their stellar squad, and Red Devils fans will heavily outnumber their Welsh counterparts in the stadium.
But Wales have the knowledge that they are unbeaten in the last three meetings between the two countries and they won the last game 1-0 in Cardiff just over a year ago.
Coleman said: "They'll play the way they play with imagination, pace and power, but we'll play the way we play.
"When it is time to defend we'll do it for our lives, and when it is time to attack we will attack with our lives.
"If we do that Belgium will know they will be in for a hell of a game because we have done it before."
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Coleman has called the game Wales' biggest since their 1958 World Cup quarter-final defeat to Brazil in Sweden.
He has told his players to embrace the occasion and says that Wales are not just happy to be in the last eight, they want to go further in the tournament.
He said: "It's a huge challenge, but just another one in a line of them we've already met.
"I'm not going to play the occasion down.
"We know what's at stake, we know we've earned it, and it's a great place to be.
"Since the 1958 quarter-final, we have to put this down as the biggest game our country's been involved in."
Belgium suffered a major blow on the eve of the game when Jan Vertonghen tore ankle ligaments in a training session.
The Tottenham defender faces six to eight weeks on the sidelines and his absence has jolted a Belgium backline already missing the suspended Thomas Vermaelen and the injured pair of Vincent Kompany and Nicolas Lombaerts.
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